Lucy Rigby

By Lucy Rigby lucyrigby

This week in Parliament, MPs voted overwhelmingly in favour of stopping smoking in cars with children present. In doing so, they put the rights of children not to breath in high levels of dangerous chemicals above the rights of adults to smoke cigarettes in cars in their presence. This is an incredibly positive move and will prevent millions of children being exposed to dangerous chemicals every week.

Around one in five young children are regularly exposed to second-hand smoke in cars and experts say children are especially vulnerable to passive smoking because of their smaller lungs and quicker breathing. According to the British Lung Foundation, nearly half a million children in England are exposed to potentially toxic levels of second-hand smoke in family cars every week.

Second-hand smoke contains more than 4,000 chemicals, some of which are known to cause cancer. Exposure has been strongly linked to chest infections, asthma, ear problems and cot death in children, and research indicates that 300,000 children in the UK visit a GP each year because of the effects of second-hand smoke, with 9,500 going to hospital. Unsurprisingly, polling shows that 80% of the public support a ban on smoking in cars with children present.

Every single Labour MP voted last night to protect children from harmful smoke and they were supported by a large number of Conservatives, including the Tory Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt. David Cameron, although not present, also pledged his support for a ban. I was ashamed to read, however, that Lincoln’s Conservative MP Karl McCartney voted to allow smoking in cars with children to continue.

Whilst I consider Mr McCartney’s stance to be disgraceful, his vote last night did not surprise me. Since Karl McCartney was elected in 2010, he’s accepted over £1,300 of hospitality from tobacco companies and supported them where he can. He signed a letter to a national newspaper opposing plain packaging of cigarettes and stood up in Parliament to attack the pub smoking ban, which doctors say has saved thousands of lives.

In voting to allow smoking in cars with children present to continue, Mr McCartney ignored the advice of health experts, the overwhelming weight of public opinion and even the example set by his own Tory Party leader and Health Secretary. Most significantly though, he signalled that he values the rights of big tobacco and the rights of car smokers over the rights of children not to be put at high levels of risk.

This isn’t just highly misjudged, it’s shameful.

Lucy Rigby is Lincoln Labour's candidate to be the city's next MP. She is a solicitor and lives in central Lincoln.

By Lucy Rigby lucyrigby

Pubs are part of the social fabric of this country, but unfortunately many are in trouble. The Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) estimates that 26 pubs close each week. It’s also likely to get worse: research from R3, the insolvency trade body, indicates that 37% of the UK’s pubs and bars (equivalent to 5,500) have a higher than normal risk of entering an insolvency procedure in the next 12 months.

Each pub closure costs a local economy £80,000. There’s an impact on jobs too: the average pub employs ten people, and these are often young people who are finding it especially hard to find work at the moment.

Many factors are behind pubs’ gradual decline, including changing lifestyles and the increase in VAT. But there is no doubt that the unfair and unbalanced relationship between very large pub companies (known as PubCos) and individual landlords has been identified by CAMRA as a key factor in pub closures.

PubCos own three quarters of Britain’s pubs and usually require their licencees to buy all drinks products from them, at whatever price they determine. This is hardly a competitive market – instead it appears to be a broken one, where vested interests dominate and landlords are paid very low wages. It really surprised me to learn that CAMRA estimates that three fifths of landlords tied to PubCos earn less than the minimum wage and the majority make less than £10,000 a year. Given all this, the need for reform is urgent.

Labour has been calling for a statutory code to guide and regulate the relationship between PubCos and landlords since 2010. The BIS Select Committee concluded nearly 4 years ago that self-regulation was no longer viable for the pub industry and a hugely diverse range of groups in the pub trade all agreed with its recommendations, including CAMRA, the Federation of Small Businesses, trade unions, the Independent Pub Confederation and the Forum of Private Business.

Last week in Parliament, Labour called a debate on this issue to demand that the Tories and Lib Dems implement a code to help pubs. Unless this happens very quickly, there is unlikely to be time to get a bill through Parliament before to the General Election. Such a code would only apply to the largest pub companies – those owning over 500 premises. It would help to create a market which is fair and balanced to the benefit of consumers, brewers and landlords alike by implementing independent rent reviews, allowing landlords to go free of the ‘beer tie’ and ensuring rules are properly enforced.

Unfortunately, the Government refused to take action, instead choosing yet another delay whilst they “review” the response to the consultation held on this issue – responses they have had since June of last year. This is a tremendous shame because the situation facing many pubs is urgent and the sooner the law is changed, the more pubs will be saved — I would hope we can all drink to that.

Lucy Rigby is Lincoln Labour's candidate to be the city's next MP. She is a solicitor and lives in central Lincoln.